Change the World SCCUR 2013

Robert B. Marks is Richard and Billie Deihl Professor of History and Environmental Studies, and has been teaching here since receiving his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In his 34 years at Whittier College, he has been responsible for teaching courses on Chinese and Japanese history and introductory history courses on East Asia and world history. He has developed a worldwide reputation for environmental history, and has created environmental history courses as well. In recognition of his teaching effectiveness and classroom innovations, in 2001 he received the Harry Nerhood Teaching Excellence Award.

Professor Marks has published widely on Chinese, world, and environmental history. His most recent book is China: Its Environment and History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012). Other publications include Tigers, Rice, Silk and Silt: Environment and Economy in Late Imperial South China (1998; translated into Chinese and published by Jiangsu Renmin Chubanshe in 2009), and The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century (2009). He has an international scholarly reputation, and has been invited to present papers at conferences in China, Hong Kong, Sweden, Japan, and the Netherlands; in 1997 he received the Aldo Leopold Award for the best article in the journal Environmental History from the American Society for Environmental History. He has received numerous fellowships, including the Graves Award (ACLS-administered), several NEH fellowships, and fellowships for research in China. In 2001 he was appointed the Richard and Billie Deihl Distinguished Professor of History. He is a member of numerous professional organizations as well as Phi Alpha Theta, the history honors society, and Omicron Delta Kappa, the national leadership honors society.